Why is toxic fandom destroying everything?

[Sgt. Sacrament]

I rarely post here, but I've read posts here almost every day for years. I searched but couldn't find any thread on this topic.

WHY are toxic fans ruining everything? At least it seems like everything. The Acolyte, Doctor Who, Rings of Power, The Marvels, you name it. I avoid spoilers on things, but it seems like in my social media feeds now almost everything I see is 'toxic fans' and 'toxic fans' that. The major genre media fan sites also often post articles. I don't know if posting links would violate board rules, but it feels like I could have 500 links to news articles about toxic fans. It's like every day.

I read comic books for years, and enjoyed the long form storytelling. I can't believe I lived to see comic book films take over the culture. It was like a good 10 year run. And now toxic fans have killed it? I guess if it's not straight white male, then they hate it.

I don't know what's going on. Sorry to rant and vent, maybe people here know what's going on or can commiserate. Thanks in advance for anyone who can commiserate.

 

[The Realist]

Saying that you won't engage with responses to your own topic is not the best incentive for people to post.

That said, the "straight white male" thing is definitely in play.

 

[The Wormhole]

Toxic fandom is merely a vocal minority that gets attention simply because our culture tends to favor those with something negative to say for some reason. It's possible many of them actually like the shows they lambast on YouTube or whatever, they just know that posting hate content will generate clicks for them and so that's what they focus on. Playing for an audience, basically.

 

[Aragorn]

Negativity gets more response than positivity. Always has, always will. And that's why we have "the fandom menace."

 

[Mage]

As with any extremist faction of any group, they are the loudest. They don't argue or discuss, they scream. Throw tantrums. Their biggest selling point for their issues will always be 'my childhood is now ruined because *insert different take on popular part of specific fandom* is different and they MUST change it back to make me happy again'.

And it's boring. Another reason why they seem to be in the majority is because the non-toxic fans have basically given up arguing back and are just enjoying their shows/movies/novels/games.

 

[Alexander Corrino]

And nothing will change unless Youtube and all those other sites change their approaches and algorithms towards "prefer positive takes" instead of "amplify negative takes". Which is not gonna happen since, as others have said, negativity brings more clicks and therefore revenue and therefore money.

 

[Tosk]

I simply click "do not recommend channel" any clickbaitey nerd-rage stuff I come across on YouTube. I haven't really seen any "toxic" stuff for quite a while.

I don't do a lot of social media, so it's outta mind, outta sight for me.

So my final thought would be "Toxic fandom is not destroying anything".

 

[Aragorn]

Someone made a browser extension that allows you to block channels on YouTube even without an account.

 

[Starbreaker]

I just watch my shows instead of talking about every detail now. I don't really value the opinions of people who can't stand the fact that stuff is "woke" because there are Black people or women in the cast.

 

[C.E. Evans]

The vast majority of fans are not toxic--they watch what they like and don't watch what they don't. They don't gripe about their disllikes on social media because they have better things to do or simply because it's not that big of a deal for them. They understand it's just a TV show, a movie, or whatever and they have more important things in their lives. Most fans probably fall into this category, IMO.

A lot of toxic fandom is social media clickbait, driven by the need to get as many likes, comments, or simply views as possible either for monetary gain and/or merely personal attention. It can seem like nobody likes nothing and that there are criticisms of every single little thing, but they really make up only a small percentage of any fanbase.

Ignore them and you'll discover it doesn't matter what they say as long as you enjoy it.

 

[Saul]

Empty vessels make the most noise. Unfortunately, social media promotes these channels because of the hits they are getting and they are basically feeding the trolls and giving them a larger platform. I've seen mild and balanced critics get turned into the worst sophists because they are selling to a very specific audience that really like it when they bang on about woke Hollywood, feminism etc.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Toxic fans have always existed. The only differences now is that they have a lot more platforms to make the loud dissent more visible, made even worse by social media and search engine algorithms to pop up more to garner more clicks. Vitriol is excellent at creating a lot of foot traffic and "engagement."

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

This kind of thing ruined YouTube for me for a while. If I'm watching someone talk about a TV show or movie, I want them to be honest about it and talk about why it didn't work for them as well as why it did, so I look for criticism and negativity as much as positivity.

Unfortunately you can't necessarily tell the difference between a video saying "This episode is bad because X" and a video saying "This episode is bad because woke Hollywood is trying to destroy everything you love" from just a title and a thumbnail, so I couldn't trust any video to not be more toxic rubbish. And clicking the wrong video would just fill my home page with even more toxic rubbish.

But then I discovered that YouTube is actually pretty good at letting you "Don't recommend channel" away anything you don't want in your life, and soon it had all gone away. It was always just a minority of people. Of course, that doesn't help all poor actors and creatives who are being harassed by them.

 

[The Realist]

Saying that you won't engage with responses to your own topic is not the best incentive for people to post.

Well, that didn't age well at all. Seems like OP is getting plenty of responses.

Not all fannish toxicity is driven by revenue. Just try mentioning comics writer Tom King on Reddit (or around a certain poster here). You'll get a vitriolic earful, free of any financial incentive. I've also seen plenty of "woke" bitching on TrekBBS, again driven not by clicks, but purely by the withered husks that those posters call souls.

 

[Sgt. Sacrament]

Saying that you won't engage with responses to your own topic is not the best incentive for people to post.

That said, the "straight white male" thing is definitely in play.

Good point... I normally don't reply because I usually read the forum at lunch from work, but don't log in from my work PC. Thanks for the suggestion, by even writing this I'm obviously taking your advice.

 

[Sgt. Sacrament]

Thanks for all the replies. At least I'm not the only one seeing the toxicity. As several of you said, maybe I need to change my social media feeds.

My original post was a rant. Reading the replies made me think of part of what was really bothering me underneath it all. I don't really pay attention to how something is received, I just watch what I want,

BUT the thing that is important is the ratings. And the headlines I get in social media from the large websites (like, say, ScreenRant) constantly are pointing out toxic fans, backlash, review bombing, etc. (Maybe I can somehow filter my social media feeds to censor those words out.) Maybe the thing that is causing it is the creators of The Acolyte apparently have been speaking up about it. The headlines give me the impression that they feel that all of the 'backlash' is causing ratings to go down.

And ratings are all that really matter, of course, for renewal. Take for example, Doctor Who. I do follow ratings, and I know that it's been getting the lowest ratings in its history, streaming numbers included. While this season is done, and it sounds like next season is in the can, even RTD himself recently said he's concerned about the poor ratings.

All that to say... it sounds to me like it's more than a concern about a vocal minority. It sounds like toxic fans are causing low ratings, or are getting the blame for low ratings. Dunno.

 

[fireproof78]

I rarely post here, but I've read posts here almost every day for years. I searched but couldn't find any thread on this topic.

WHY are toxic fans ruining everything? At least it seems like everything. The Acolyte, Doctor Who, Rings of Power, The Marvels, you name it. I avoid spoilers on things, but it seems like in my social media feeds now almost everything I see is 'toxic fans' and 'toxic fans' that. The major genre media fan sites also often post articles. I don't know if posting links would violate board rules, but it feels like I could have 500 links to news articles about toxic fans. It's like every day.

I read comic books for years, and enjoyed the long form storytelling. I can't believe I lived to see comic book films take over the culture. It was like a good 10 year run. And now toxic fans have killed it? I guess if it's not straight white male, then they hate it.

I don't know what's going on. Sorry to rant and vent, maybe people here know what's going on or can commiserate. Thanks in advance for anyone who can commiserate.

One, glad you posted.

Two, negativity draws in the human attention. We are very much hard wired to focus on negativity (otherwise we wouldn't need positivity seminars and training). So, if something negative happens, people want to feel validated over their feelings, and that leads to a lot of loud expression of frustration.

Three, things are not "ruined" simply because people talk negatively. it always amazes me how quickly something is ruined for someone simply because of a newer installment, or a story a person didn't like. And this is not a new thing. Look back at The Next Generation and how people were like "No Trek without Kirk and Spock." It clearly didn't ruin Star Trek, or if it did the ruination was very brief.

Finally, people are not introspective, so the idea of a different point of view is just difficult to wrap one's head around. They have a knee jerk reaction, they yell, they move on. There's no reflection, because generally, at least in the US, we are not encouraged to reflect but to react. So, you get reaction videos, social media posts, people saying "this is not how Marvel/Star Wars/Star Trek/DC etc. should be!" and they get attention for it. And attention rewards behavior.

I'd love a further discussion with people who claim such ruination or something not being true whatever, but that rarely happens because people are not reflective. They like what they like, and how dare people like it differently, tell a story differently, add something different, etc.

That's my view.

All that to say... it sounds to me like it's more than a concern about a vocal minority. It sounds like toxic fans are causing low ratings, or are getting the blame for low ratings. Dunno.

Ratings are more likely to be done by people who have a negative experience. Imagine all the positivity we would get if people actually rated it because they liked it, but because they liked it they see no reason to comment.


In retail, it is an adage that you need 10 positive experiences to make up one negative, and people are more like to speak badly than of a wonderful experience.

 

[UssGlenn]

All that to say... it sounds to me like it's more than a concern about a vocal minority. It sounds like toxic fans are causing low ratings, or are getting the blame for low ratings. Dunno.

the way I see it, there are 4 kinds of viewers.
1. I like this thing because of the subject matter regardless of the quality
2. I like this because the quality of the show is good
3. I don't like this because the quality of the show is bad
4. I don't like this because of the subject matter regardless of the quality.

So, then you need to decide if any particular show is actually good, to judge the response. Ans some people have higher tolerances for leaps of logic than others. The people in category 1 will call the people in category 3 and 4 toxic, even if the show is bad. You could argue that category 1 people are a form of Toxic positivity, since praising bad work helps no one in the long run. Category 2 and 3 are mostly the same people, but the more average a show is the more these groups will balance. The only time I'd say category 1 or 4 is actively toxic is when they are going against the judgement of the larger middle group.

Recently there has been a push by Disney, in particular, to preemptively defect criticism by warning of toxic fandom before a show even airs. This is a deliberate attempt to lump groups 3 and 4 together, and delegitimize good faith criticism. And group 1 actively helps promote this. I don't know how much effect reviews by group 4 affects the judgement of groups 2 and 3, but I don't think it's as much as the studios want us to believe.

 

[Owain Taggart]

It's the internet. The internet has given people instant gratification, but also the ability to post has opened the floodgates of criticism.

Toxic fans have always existed. The only differences now is that they have a lot more platforms to make the loud dissent more visible, made even worse by social media and search engine algorithms to pop up more to garner more clicks. Vitriol is excellent at creating a lot of foot traffic and "engagement."

This. One can only imagine the kind of criticism that would have flowed had something like All in the Family had access to more platforms back in the day. I could easily imagine lots of squirming in people's seats of those that it made uncomfortable.

 

[Morpheus 02]

It isn't just them -- it is everyone who is magnifying the toxicity by syaing "Look how toxic the fandom is"...but also enable it by making it generic... "toxic fandom" as opposed to the specific person doing it, so in a sense people GIVE them a "KKK hood" so that you can't isolate the problem, but make it so amorphous, others can join in.

Instead of "cancel culture", we should ahve "ignore culture" -- maybe a web site where people can read for themselves and decide to ignore someone (with that website replicating whatever was said, so it doesn't get views and thus enables the negative perosn by getting more views).